{{Short description|American architect (1871–1949)}} {{Distinguish|William W. Cook}} {{Use American English|date=June 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2023}} {{Infobox person | name = William Wilson Cooke | other_names = William Wilson Cook,<br/> W. W. Cooke | birth_date = {{Birth date|1871|12|27}} | birth_place = Greenville, South Carolina, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1949|08|25|1871|12|27}} | death_place = Gary, Indiana, U.S. | burial_place = Fern Oak Cemetery, Griffith, Indiana, U.S. | education = Boston School of Technology,<br/> Columbia University | alma_mater = Claflin College | occupation = Architect, school administrator | spouse = Anne Miller | children = 2, including Anne Cooke, Lloyd Miller Cooke | father = Wilson Cooke | relatives = Vardry McBee (grandfather),<br/> Thomas Ezekiel Miller (father in-law),<br/> Ira De Augustine Reid (son in-law) }} '''William Wilson Cooke''' (1871–1949) was an American architect.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Powers, Jr. |first=Bernard E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5hP9DwAAQBAJ |title=101 African Americans Who Shaped South Carolina |date=2020-10-12 |publisher=Univ of South Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-64336-141-3 |pages=75–76 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=Summer 2011 |title=Building a Community: The Architecture of William Wilson Cooke |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |volume=23 |issue=3}}</ref> He worked in the Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury and was the first African American man to be employed there.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Cleemann |first1=Jørgen |last2=Rights |first2=Historic Preservation Specialist Post filed in: Civil |title=Pioneering Black Architect William Wilson Cooke |url=https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/24/pioneering-black-architect-william-wilson-cooke |access-date=2023-02-26 |website=U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sisson |first=Patrick |date=2017-10-18 |title=A forgotten African-American architect in Gary, Indiana, illustrates a preservation gap |url=https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/18/16497748/historic-preservation-architect-william-wilson-cooke-gary |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201021204147/https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/18/16497748/historic-preservation-architect-william-wilson-cooke-gary |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 21, 2020 |access-date=2023-02-26 |website=Curbed |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Bainbridge-2016">{{Cite web |last=Bainbridge |first=Judith T. |date=April 15, 2016 |title=Cook, William Wilson |url=https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/cook-william-wilson/ |access-date=2023-02-26 |website=South Carolina Encyclopedia |language=en-US}}</ref> Cooke was the first African American to obtain an architect's license in the state of Indiana in 1929.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> He designed many buildings for Claflin College, the Cookman Institute, and the United States Postal Service. Early in his career he worked as a school official.
== Early life and education == William Wilson Cooke was born on December 27, 1871, in Greenville, South Carolina.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /> His parents were Magdalena Walker and Wilson Cooke, a former slave, merchant and local politician.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /><ref name="Washington Post">{{Cite news |title=The son of a former slave became a groundbreaking architect. This crumbling building is about to come down. |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/10/18/son-former-slave-became-groundbreaking-architect-this-crumbling-building-is-about-come-down/ |access-date=2023-02-27 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> He had four siblings, all of whom attended Claflin College.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> His paternal grandfather was Vardry McBee, an influential entrepreneur, a white slave holder, and philanthropist of Greenville.<ref name="Wilson-2004">{{cite book |title=African American Architects, 1865–1945 |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-1359-5629-5 |editor-last=Wilson |editor-first=Derek Spurlock |location=New York |pages=148–151 |chapter=William Wilson Cooke |quote=His father, Wilson Cooke (1819–1897), was the slave son of Vardry McBee |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0OaSAgAAQBAJ&dq=wilson+cooke+greenville&pg=PA148}}</ref> Cooke attended school in Greenville until age 14, and then served as a carpenters apprentice from 1885 until 1888.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /><ref name="Tatman">{{Philadelphia Architects and Buildings |author=Sandra L. Tatman |ar=736252 |Cooke, William Wilson (1871–1949)}}</ref>
Cooke attended Claflin College (now Claflin University) in Orangeburg from 1888 to 1893, where he studied architectural drawing and graduated with a college preparatory diploma in liberal arts.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /><ref name="Tatman" /> In 1900, he attended classes Boston School of Technology (now Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and architecture classes at Columbia University.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /> He returned to Claflin College to receive a B.S. degree in technology in 1902.<ref name="Tatman" />
== Career == From 1894 to 1897, he served as superintendent of industrial arts at Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth (now Savannah State University).<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /> He then returned to Claflin College in order to serve as the superintendent of manual training and industrial arts, replacing Robert Charles Bates.<ref name="Tatman" /> He also took classes to receive a B.S. in technology.
After completing school, Cooke was employed by the Freedmen's Aid Society and Women's Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church as an architect from 1902 and 1907.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" />
In March 1907, he took a three-day federal civil service examination in Boston, Massachusetts, as the required workplace admission test at that time was not offered to African-Americans in Washington, D.C.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /> He passed the exams and was hired in the Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> This made him the first African American man to be employed at that department.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /> In 1909, he transferred departments to Field Operations, where he would supervise the construction of federal courthouses and post offices. He continued to work at the Office of the Supervising Architect until 1918, when he changed jobs.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /> He went to work as director of vocational guidance and training at Wilberforce University, where he remained until 1921.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" />
From 1921 to 1929, Cooke had a private architectural practice at 1828 Broadway, Gary, Indiana.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> He was also the director of Gary Building and Loan Association.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> Cooke was the first African American to obtain an architect's license in the state of Indiana on October 25, 1929.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, he lost his firm and had accrued great debt, to which he was eventually able to repay.<ref name="Wilson-2004" />
In 1931, Cooke re-joined the Office of the Supervising Architect working as a construction engineer; he designed small-town post offices in a few states.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> In the 1920s and 1930s, Cooke ran an organization that was anti-Ku Klux Klan, as well as anti-“Bow Tie Amalgamation” group (a Black-led group that was KKK-affiliated) in Gary, because these two groups were active locally.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /> He retired from the federal government in 1942.<ref name="Wilson-2004" />
Cooke's profile was included in the biographical dictionary ''African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945'' (2004).
== Personal life == He married Anne Miller, and they had two children, Anne Cooke Reid and Lloyd Miller Cooke.<ref name="Wilson-2004" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Spangenburg |first1=Ray |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSOZ8kF5ynEC |title=African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention |last2=Moser |first2=Diane |last3=Long |first3=Douglas |date=2014-05-14 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1-4381-0774-5 |pages=47–48 |language=en |chapter=Lloyd Miller Cooke}}</ref> His wife Anne Miller's father was Thomas Ezekiel Miller, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 7th district.<ref name="Bainbridge-2016" /> His son in-law was sociologist Ira De Augustine Reid, however Cooke died before the marriage.
Towards the end of his life, Cooke lived at 2319 Adams Street, Gary, Indiana.<ref name="Wilson-2004" />
== Works == A list of Cookes' architectural design work, broken up by project and listed in ascending date order.
=== Claflin College === {{Columns-list| * Lee Library (1898), Claflin College (now Claflin University), Orangeburg, South Carolina<ref name="AAArch">{{cite book |title=African American Architects, 1865–1945 |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-1359-5629-5 |editor-last=Wilson |editor-first=Derek Spurlock |location=New York |pages=152–154 |chapter=William Wilson Cooke, Building List |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0OaSAgAAQBAJ}}</ref> * Slater Training Building (1900), Claflin College (now Claflin University), Orangeburg, South Carolina<ref name="AAArch" /> * Louise Stokes Girls Dormitory (1904), Claflin College (now Claflin University), Orangeburg, South Carolina<ref name="AAArch" /> *Louise Soules Home for Girls (1905), Claflin College (now Claflin University), Orangeburg, South Carolina<ref name="AAArch" /> *Tingley Memorial Hall (the main building) (1905), Claflin College (now Claflin University), Orangeburg, South Carolina; NRHP-listed<ref name="scinv">{{Cite web |author=Edmonds |first1=Mary Watson |last2=Fullington |first2=Martha Walker |date=June 1983 |title=Tingley Memorial Hall |url=http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/orangeburg/S10817738009/S10817738009.pdf |work=South Carolina Inventory Form for Historic Districts and Individual Properties in a Multiple Property Submission }}</ref> *Mary E. Dutton Boys' Dormitory (1907), Claflin College (now Claflin University), Orangeburg, South Carolina<ref name="AAArch" /> *Presidents Residence (or Dunwalton), Claflin College (now Claflin University), Orangeburg, South Carolina<ref name="AAArch" /> }}
=== United States Post Offices === {{Columns-list| * U.S. Post Office (1911), Athens, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1914), Defiance, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1914), Bowling Green, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1917), Ashland, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1931), Lancaster, Pennsylvania<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1932), Sheboygan, Wisconsin<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1935), International Falls, Minnesota<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1938), Millville, Wisconsin<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1938), Columbus, Wisconsin<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1940), Bluffton, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1941), Coldwater, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office (1941), Crestline, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office, Marietta, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office, Ironton, Ohio<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office, Appleton, Wisconsin (demolished)<ref name="AAArch" /> * U.S. Post Office, Hibbing, Minnesota<ref name="AAArch" /> }}
=== Cookman Institute === *Main building (1901), Cookman Institute (now Bethune–Cookman University), Jacksonville, Florida<ref name="AAArch" /> *Dining Hall and Girls Home (1901), Cookman Institute (now Bethune–Cookman University), Jacksonville, Florida<ref name="AAArch" />
=== Other buildings === *Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth campus building (1896), Savannah, Georgia (destroyed by fire)<ref name="AAArch" /> *John Hammond Fordham residence (1903), 415 Boulevard Street, Orangeburg, South Carolina<ref name="AAArch" /> *First A.M.E. Church (1923), 2001 Massachusetts Street, Gary, Indiana<ref name="AAArch" /> *Asbury United Methodist Church (1920s renovation), Washington, D.C.<ref name="Washington Post" /> *St. John Hospital (c. 1920s), 28 E. 22nd Street, Gary, Indiana<ref name="Washington Post" /><ref name="AAArch" /> *Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church (1925), 15th Avenue at Massachusetts Street, Gary, Indiana<ref name="AAArch" /> *John Stewart Settlement House (1925), 1501 Massachusetts Street, Gary, Indiana; NRHP-listed<ref name="SHAARD">{{cite web |title=Indiana State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database (SHAARD) |url=https://secure.in.gov/apps/dnr/shaard/welcome.html |publisher=Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology |format=Searchable database}} ''Note:'' This includes {{cite web |author=Rev. L. Ray Sells |date=February 1977 |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: John Stewart Settlement House |url=https://secure.in.gov/apps/dnr/shaard/r/1ca52/N/John_Stewart_Settlement_House_Lake_CO_Nom.pdf }} and Accompanying photographs.</ref> *Campbell Friendship House, 21st Street at Washington Avenue, Gary, Indiana
== See also == * African-American architects * National Register of Historic Places listings in Orangeburg County, South Carolina * Robert Charles Bates, an early architecture teacher at Claflin University
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke, William Wilson}} Category:1871 births Category:1949 deaths Category:People from Greenville, South Carolina Category:People from Gary, Indiana Category:Claflin University alumni Category:United States Department of the Treasury officials Category:African-American architects Category:20th-century American architects Category:African-American history of South Carolina Category:African-American history of Indiana Category:African-American history of Washington, D.C. Category:Savannah State University faculty